Means of payment will hereinafter be understood to be checks, accordingly adapted magnetic-stripe and/or chip cards, NFC devices (near field communication devices) with a corresponding function, for example mobile phones or chip cards, coins and value documents.
Value documents will be understood here to be sheet-shaped objects that represent for example a monetary value or authorization and are hence not to be producible at will by unauthorized persons. Hence, they have features that are not easily produced, in particular copied, whose presence is an indication of authenticity, i.e. production by an authorized body. Important examples of such value documents are coupons, vouchers, checks and in particular bank notes.
For accepting and/or dispensing such means of payment or for processing value documents it is common to use automatically working apparatuses which are operated by a person hereinafter designated the user or customer. To impede or prevent tampering by the user, the components of such apparatuses, for example card readers, coin accepting and/or dispensing devices and/or value-document accepting and/or dispensing devices, are disposed within a housing of the apparatus. Such a housing also permits protection of the components from soiling and other unfavorable influences, as well as an attractive design.
For controlling the components there is normally provided a control device which controls a display device, for example a screen, in order to permit information, for example about the operation of the apparatus or relating to a payment carried out by means of the means of payment or value documents, to be shown to a user.
For servicing of the components and for elimination of disturbances by persons hereinafter designated servicing persons, it is necessary that the housing is opened. The servicing person can then carry out the servicing work.
In particular for the installation of such apparatuses in business rooms, for example of banks or retail trade, as compact a design as possible would be advantageous for such apparatuses.
However, a compact design can lead to an apparatus that is awkward or elaborate to service when the components of the apparatus are poorly accessible.